


teenage dreams (in a teenage circus)

by iamnotalizard



Series: trans diego & child five [2]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Angst with a Happy Ending, Forced Pregnancy, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Reginald Hargreeves' A+ Parenting, Slice of Life, Time Skips, Trans Character, Trans Diego Hargreeves, child five, diego is just Doing His Best, i guess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-03
Updated: 2019-05-03
Packaged: 2020-02-16 19:41:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 9,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18697927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iamnotalizard/pseuds/iamnotalizard
Summary: diego never intended to be a dad at sixteen but then again his life never really goes according to plan





	1. one

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> zero

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw in the end notes

Diego doesn’t usually go for white boys but for some reason this one has him entranced. With his bright green eyes and swoopy blond hair and skin so pale that the strobe lights at this party practically reflect off of him, Diego can’t bring himself to leave his side. And yeah, maybe part of it is because this boy - Victor, he introduced himself as - has also been fawning over Diego ever since he followed Klaus into this house party that he apparently got an invite to.

All night he has been laughing at Diego’s awkward jokes, and finding excuses to fling his arm around Diego’s shoulder (“I’m a swimmer!” Diego had to yell over the shitty rap music for Victor to hear him. Victor had grinned and yelled back, “I could tell! Your shoulders are so broad and strong!”), pressing closer than necessary to him when they sat on the couch or leaned against a wall, and when Victor praised Diego for his excellent aim when playing darts, Diego could feel his knees get weak.

He isn’t at all surprised when Victor takes his hand and starts to lead him to one of the bedrooms.

Diego is barely sixteen, and he knows he should stay downstairs with his brother - hell, he knows he shouldn’t even be here with his brother, considering they both had to sneak out to come over - and he knows that both he and Victor are bit too drunk, but he lets himself be pulled into a room with a bed.

He doesn’t think about condoms, because he hasn’t had his period in three months. To his credit, Victor barely falters when Diego doesn’t let him touch his chest, or when he gropes Diego’s crotch and doesn’t find a dick.

In retrospect, Diego guesses they were both too easy going that night. Or maybe the better word is stupid.

Either way, the next morning Diego wakes up with a hangover, hickies, and with Klaus shaking him, grinning like a lunatic.

They both get yelled at when they get home and are made to scrub floorboards with a toothbrush as punishment, but Diego can’t bring himself to care.

At least, Diego doesn’t care until two months later he’s peeing on a stick and it tells him he’s pregnant.

\--

Diego admits that his first (okay, _second_ ) wrong move is telling Klaus in the hallway, where anyone could hear. Because someone does hear.

It’s Luther. Luther is the one who hears Diego’s panicked whispers of, “I don’t know what to do! You can’t tell anyone, Klaus!”

So of course, Luther goes and tells Reginald.

More humiliating than when he came out and Reginald demanded Diego’s journal (the journal that he made all his children keep) to find out his inner thoughts and feelings, more humiliating than when he took measurements of his body twice a month to study the changes that hormones brought on, even more, humiliating that when Reginald would ask across the dining room table, “So, Diego, do tell, have you felt an increase in libido yet?”, more humiliating than all of that is Reginald throwing open the doors to the living room, grabbing Diego by his hair to drag him into the hall and scream at him, all while his siblings are able to hear.

Diego returns to the living room with tears running down his face, Reginald’s hand at the back of his neck, and barely manages to stutter out, even though by now they have all heard, “I-I-I’m pr-pr-pr-pregnant.”

The room is silent except for Diego’s sniffling. Dinner is silent too. It becomes a theme, there on out.

\--

Diego, for his part, pretends like nothing is wrong. He goes to school, goes to his swim and archery practices, goes to his track meets, and complains about biology being boring, or about waking up early like he’s just a normal teenage boy with normal teenage boy problems.

He does a good job at ignoring all his problems, until the next Wednesday when he knocks on his mom’s door, holding a first aid kit, and asks for help with his injection.

Grace furrows her eyebrows and smiles, “Why would you need help?”

“Uh, well, it’s Wednesday and I still don’t like to do it myself,” Diego mumbles, embarrassed at his mom’s question. He thought that this was their routine now, their thing. Grace had never denied him help before, but he guesses she has been helping him for over a year, so maybe it is time to try and do it himself.

“Oh, sweetie, I know that, but you can’t take testosterone anymore.”

Diego looks at her confused. “What do you mean?”

“Sweetheart,” Grace starts gently, “You’re pregnant. You can’t take testosterone or else you’ll have complications.”

Diego stares at her. “But. But. I’m not keeping this.” He nearly hisses out.

Grace tilts her head. “Your father told me that you were.”

And, fuck, maybe Diego should have seen this coming after all the scoldings and all the insults about not being responsible.

Diego barges into Reginald’s study without knocking, and Reginald tells him, with no uncertainty, that Diego won’t find a doctor in all of New York who’ll give him an abortion. Nor will he find one willing to prescribe any more testosterone until after the baby is born.

His mother tries to console him, telling him how he’ll make a great parent - a great daddy, and he knows she’s trying to help, but it stings.

-

Diego still pretends like everything is normal at school. He pretends even as his face gains weight again and as he starts to slow down during track meets.

He always wears a swim shirt in the pool - previously he was able to make up for any drag with sheer power and will - but even with that people soon begin to notice his body changing.

It’s only after he barely manages to crawl out of the pool to vomit that he finally caves and admits over dinner that he can’t attend school anymore.

Reginald is smug, as he tells him that he’s already signed him up for homeschooling for the next few months.

\--

Diego tells Victor because he feels like he should. He has to beg Klaus for his phone number, and he can tell that it makes Klaus uncomfortable to know exactly who knocked his brother up.

Victor doesn’t go to the same school as Diego and his siblings, so he doesn’t even know that Diego isn’t attending anymore.

They meet up outside Victor’s house - because Diego thinks it would be a dick move to make Victor travel very far to drop the news on him - and before Victor can even say hello, Diego is telling him.

“I’m keeping… it.” Diego says when he sees Victor’s mouth open again. “You can be involved or not. It’s up to you. Either way, I won’t hold it against you.”

Victor nods, and slowly says, “Will you be okay? Like, if I’m not involved?”

Diego nods. “Yeah, my family is well off, you won’t even have to pay child support or anything.”

“That’s not what I meant, but okay.”

Diego doesn’t ask him what he meant, but he takes the response as a solid _Leave me out of this_. He doesn’t blame him, he wishes he could be left out of it too.

\--

Once he’s out of school and off all his sports teams, Diego is basically alone. His friends try to reach out, but Diego doesn’t reply, and eventually, they stop texting him. He looks at his calendar and sees all the events he’s supposed to be at - all the tournaments and practices and meetups - and more than anything he just feels sad.

More than anything, Diego wishes that his siblings would talk to him. He’s not stupid, he can hear them whispering about him after they catch him staring down at his stomach, he hears conversations come to a shrieking halt when he walks into a room.

They don’t even invite him out to Griddy’s anymore. He never thought that missing out on donuts and shitty coffee would hurt so much.

\---

Grace is the one who takes him to all his appointments. She smiles and hums as he sulks in the passenger seat, wearing hoodies and sweatpants two sizes too large all the time now. It’s Grace who holds Diego’s hand as gel is smeared on his stomach, and who hugs him in the parking lot as he sobs.

She is also the one who goes out and picks up all the furniture and helps clear Diego’s room to fit a crib.

Grace tells Diego that she can teach him anything he needs to know about taking care of a baby, so he doesn’t have to go to any of those baby care classes.

The bigger Diego’s stomach gets, the more excited and anxious his siblings get. On some level, he resents that he’s now the vehicle for their fantasies of a new ‘sibling’, but he’s also just glad that they’re spending time with him again.

Ben is back to giving him buzzcuts in the bathroom. Vanya is back to shyly asking for his help at beating a level in Smash Bros. Klaus is back to annoying him about anything and anything. Allison is telling him about gossip that he doesn’t care about again. Even Luther is back to glaring at him when he talks back.

It still isn’t the same, since he doesn’t get to experience any of this at school and because he doesn’t leave the house. But it’s still nice, not being forgotten.

\--

Diego knows early on that he’s not going to be able to handle giving birth naturally. After arguing with Reginald for a few weeks, he finally gets permission to have a c-section.

He’s told that his appointment for the surgery is at two pm on September twentieth. He feels nauseated when he writes it in his calendar.

\---

“So, what’re you thinking of naming him?” Klaus asks, laying on Diego’s bed, decidedly ignoring Diego’s annoyance at his interrupted studying.

Diego didn’t even want to know the gender of this kid, but Reginald did, so now everyone knows.

“I haven’t thought about it,” Diego says, only partially lying. He knows he wants to name this kid something Spanish, something that Reginald can’t claim for himself. “But I’m not naming him after you so don’t ask!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw for mentions of child abuse and forced pregnancy


	2. two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ages one through four

Right at one pm, on the dot, September twentieth, Diego’s water breaks. The whole family was just getting ready to head out to the hospital, so it wasn’t like they were unprepared. He doesn’t even get contractions during the car ride.

They get to the hospital a bit early, and Diego is led to a room to wait by himself while they get the operating room ready. He’s given a gown and sits on a cot.

He sees the clock’s hand moving, letting him know it’s two pm, and he guesses his kid will be a punctual little fucker because he gets his first contraction.

Diego gets given anesthetic, which mostly makes him feel confused and tired, and they put a divider underneath his chin so that he doesn’t see as they cut him open. They have to do a vertical cut because apparently his kid is upside down or something, Diego never really paid attention and now he doesn’t have the concentration to listen to what anyone is saying.

It’s relatively quick, not that Diego is really aware of any passage of time, and before he knows it a nurse is taking down the fabric barrier and he can see bandages around his - now mostly flat - stomach.

The kid doesn’t even cry. It’s mostly a blur, but soon Diego is in a room with his family, holding a baby. The baby is paler than Diego thought he would be, and when he opens his eyes just a sliver, Diego sees green instead of brown. It makes his heart do weird things in his chest.

Someone - probably Ben - asks him what his name is going to be, and Diego still hasn’t thought about it at length, but without hesitation, he says, “Fidel Victor Hargreeves.”

\--

Diego spends a lot of time laying down after Fidel is born. He can’t move around much while his scar is healing, but he still finds ways to do little exercises. He wants to have at least some muscle definition back before he gets back on testosterone, which should be soon. He can’t bring himself to breastfeed, almost having had a mental breakdown in the hospital when a nurse brought a hungry Fidel into the room and laid him down on Diego’s chest.

He guesses Reginald feels like he’s been punished enough since he relents and buys baby formula.

The first few months with Fidel are largely unremarkable. Diego leaves the documenting stuff to Grace, who seems to be excited to create a new baby book, but from his perspective, not much is happening. Fidel doesn’t cry often, mostly just gurgling when he’s hungry. He’s content to play by himself but he also likes it when Diego’s siblings play games with him. He doesn’t get sick everywhere and he sleeps through the nights. Most of Diego’s interactions with him are limited to Fidel napping next to him while he reads his textbooks or does his homework in bed.

Admittedly, it lulls Diego into a false sense of security.

By the time Fidel is one and a half Diego is ready to rip his hair out because by now Fidel can walk and while his words aren’t the most coherent, he can talk some. And once he learns how to talk, lord, is he demanding.

It doesn’t help that Diego also has to go on bedrest again after getting top surgery, not that Fidel understands that. All Fidel knows is that he wants to move and play and climb, and he wants Diego to watch him, and for some reason, Diego won’t. Diego knows he can’t get too upset with a toddler, but the constant whining and shouting get on his nerves faster than he would hope.

It’s not that no one helps him - hell, Grace does most of the actual taking care of him - but they all leave it to him to try and teach Fidel how to act, how to speak, how to wash himself, and tucking him into bed. He doesn’t call Diego ‘dad’, but Diego’s pretty sure that Fidel is aware that that’s what he is since he never goes to anyone else when he’s tired, or hungry, or when he’s fallen down. And maybe a small part of him feels pride in that but mostly it just makes him angrier that he’s seventeen years old and isn’t able to go out to parties or clubs or even the library anymore because he has a kid at home.

By the time Fidel is two, Diego is already two semesters into college, so he’s out of the house more, which Fidel loathes. Every day when Diego comes home he’s greeted with an armful of toddler and spends most evenings sitting at the kitchen table studying and listening to endless rambles about bugs found in the garden, or cereal, or some show on tv. It’s cute, Diego has to admit. On days that Diego doesn’t have school or is home early, he’ll take Fidel out on walks, or take him to a playground or even just to a store.

Maybe it’s because he passes better, now that he has his chiselled jaw and muscle back, along with his new flat chest, but Diego isn’t as self-conscious to be out with Fidel anymore. Most people think that Fidel is his younger brother, considering the age difference and the fact that he has none of Diego’s features. (That fact only makes Diego a little bit sad, sometimes, when he has to stay up because Fidel doesn’t want to go to sleep unless Diego is there. Mostly he finds it funny, like a blessing in disguise, but sometimes he wishes he could look at Fidel without thinking about the guy that got him into this mess in the first place.)

Still, Diego isn’t entirely sure how to raise a toddler. He leaves it to Grace to keep Fidel alive, and he isn’t sure how to teach him things like colours, or how to do math, or why the sky is blue. So he sits with Fidel while he reads and pushes him on the swings and tucks him into bed and helps cut his food into smaller pieces, but there’s still a distance between them, and he isn’t sure if it’s there for his sake or Fidel’s. But it’s there.

Fidel is three when he starts throwing tantrums regularly. And maybe that’s Diego’s fault since he never really put effort into trying to teach Fidel how to use his inside voice, or not to hit people, or that no one can understand him when he’s crying.

Since he’s in college, and the rest of his siblings are just about to finish high school, Diego regularly returns home from school to a deafeningly loud house. His siblings are useless at calming down a screaming child, Reginald would never lower himself to even try, and even Grace seems to be at a loss after the first tear falls. Maybe Diego feels a bit of pride at the fact that he’s the only one who can calm Fidel down, but mostly he’s irritated when he finds out that Fidel has cried for an hour before he came home to calm him down.

“Are you done?” Diego will ask, arms crossed, staring down at the wailing boy. Sometimes his siblings will bail as soon as Fidel starts to scream, but sometimes they stay and watch Diego work his magic, probably to try and figure out how he does it. “The longer you cry, the longer it takes for me to fix what’s wrong.”

Fidel will sniffle and start to gather himself up from the ground. He’ll still be sobbing, but softer, arms raised to be picked up. After a second, Diego bends down to hold him.

“What’s wrong, kiddo?”

“Ache.” Fidel will usually only reply with one-word responses while crying, but Diego learned how to decode them quickly.

“You got a headache?”

And Fidel will nod, still sniffling, head burrowed in Diego’s neck.

“Crying makes headaches worse, kiddo. Next time you gotta tell me and I’ll fix it, okay? Diego will fix it.”

\--

Fidel’s fourth year passes by without much incident. He gets more confident as his vocabulary grows. Diego signs Fidel up for kindergarten, which he hates, but he hates the tutors that Reginald hires more, so he pouts and lets Diego walk him to school every day.

Diego himself is almost done his degree, and he feels a bit awkward studying in the kitchen now that his siblings are also studying there, so he takes to doing his work in his bedroom. Fidel has his own room now, but he’ll do his colouring and math and writing practice while laying on Diego’s rug.

Allison gets cast in some B-rate horror flick, where she gets naked before getting murdered, and moves out to the West Coast. Fidel asks about her at dinner time. Diego just cuts up Fidel’s vegetables into smaller pieces and listens to his family clamour over each other trying to give a child-friendly explanation for her absence. He hears snippets of “she’s following her dreams!” and “a great opportunity” and “it doesn't  mean she doesn’t love you!”, before he’s had enough.

“A man gave Allison a job that she wanted more than she wanted to stay here. So she left.” Diego says, and Fidel’s head turns from everyone else to him. “She wants to be in movies, and they don’t make movies out here, so she had to leave.”

“Oh,” Fidel says. “Can I watch it?”

“Not a chance, kiddo. She gets cut in half.” He sees Fidel’s eyes widening. “Don’t worry, they glued her back together, so she’s fine now.”

Everyone has more pressing issues to attend to than minding Allison’s absence. His other siblings start getting accepted to colleges, and slowly they start making plans to trickle out of the house. Diego would have left a long time ago - probably before Allison - if he had enough money or if he didn’t have to finish his stupid criminology degree before becoming a police officer.

More than that, Fidel is asking more questions that Diego doesn’t want to answer.

“Diego,” Fidel asks one night, as Diego is smoothing the covers over his shoulders, “are you my dad?”

Diego freezes, staring at the sleepy but attentive child. He clears his throat.

“Why… Why the sudden question?”

“We had to draw pictures of our families today in class and label our family members. I labelled you as ‘Diego’, and Miss Julie said I was supposed to put things down like ‘mom’ or ‘dad’.” Fidel yawns. “So I need to fix my picture tomorrow. So are you my dad?”

Diego swallows and takes a deep breath. It feels silly to be as conflicted over such a simple topic, and the fact that Fidel is asking because of a school project, and not some profound quest for meaning, somehow makes it worse.

“Yes, Fidel, I’m your dad,” Diego says, ignoring the parts of his mind protesting that title.

“And what about my mom?” Fidel asks, eyes getting droopy.

Diego sighs. “You don’t have a mom. I’ll explain everything better when you’re older, okay?”

Fidel lets out a grumble but doesn’t argue. Three days later he brings home the family portrait that he drew, with impressing detail for a kindergartener. Grace hangs it on the fridge, and over as semi-stick figure drawing of Diego is the label ‘Diego (dad)’. He isn’t sure if he appreciates the title or not.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> anyone else rmbr that conspiracy theory where fidel castro was apparently justin trudeau's father?? god i wish it were true


	3. three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> five through six

It when Fidel gets to five years old that he starts to assert himself more. Diego is out of the house even more now that he’s training to be a police officer. Klaus, with all his addictions that everyone else has been politely ignoring since he was about twelve, is falling off the deep end quicker than anyone can save him. Ben is off studying marine life abroad. Luther is training for the Olympics. And Vanya, Fidel’s favourite of Diego’s siblings, moved into some ratty apartment after a fight with Reginald.

Fidel is quickly realizing that he’s smarter than other kids his age and hates school. He hates it more when he gets moved up a grade and is suddenly the smallest one in class. He hates not being able to spend time with Vanya or Klaus or Ben or Diego and he hates spending time with other people.

“Fidel, apologize to Grace,” Diego says sternly one day after Fidel kicked Grace in the shin. With the stern tone that Diego has, the name grates against his ears.

“Don’t call me that!” Fidel -  _ no _ , he quickly thinks,  _ not Fidel _ \- whines.

“Don’t call you what, Fidel?”

“That! Don’t call me Fidel!”

“That’s your name.”

“No, it’s not! I’m changing it!” He declares, glaring at Diego.

Diego huffs. “Fidel, you are five-!”

“Yes!” Five grins. “I am!”

Diego blinks. “What?”

“Five! I’m Five! That’s my name.”

Diego is so thrown for a loop, he forgets all about making Five apologize to Grace. He tries to call him down for dinner a few days later by calling out ‘Fidel’, but there’s no response. After a few minutes, he tentatively calls out ‘Five’, and hears the sound of soft footsteps coming down the stairs. He ignores the look of disapproval from Reginald, and the looks of confusion from his siblings, and decides to let the name stay around until Five wanted to be called something else.  _ Besides _ , Diego thinks,  _ I did the same thing too. _

\--

By the time Diego is twenty-two and Five is six, he finally has enough money to move out. He feels guilty, but he briefly considers leaving Five behind and letting Grace raise him. Then he remembers how terrible it was to grow up with Reginald, and at least he had siblings to help him through it, but Five has no one. Not to mention, more than once he caught Reginald trying to measure Five’s growth and marking it down, trying to feed him weird supplements and strange serums. Once Diego even came home to find sticky circles all over Five’s forehead and chest. When he asked about it, Five told him that Reginald had put sensors all over Five’s body and made him run and jump and read for the better part on the afternoon.

It took Diego all he had not to march into Reginald's study and gut him where he sat. Instead he started looking for places to live.

The apartment is pretty shitty. Five scrunches his nose at it the first time he sees it, and Diego can’t help but agree. But, Diego wins him over by telling him that they can paint the walls any colour he wants.

Five’s bedroom ends up being bright green and the living room, where Diego sleeps, is lavender.

It makes Diego happy to see Five happy at home, especially since he’s been having a difficult time everywhere else in life. Diego’s decision to move Five up a grade the previous year did nothing to challenge Five, who still found school work too easy and too boring. What it did do was create a bigger rift between him and other children at school. At his the school's suggestion, Diego asked Five if he wanted to skip another grade, putting him in the third grade, Five had just shrugged and said, “I’m already reading their books.”

Diego hoped that it would finally academically challenge Five enough that he could finally find some common ground with kids his age.

Instead, Diego gets called to the school three times in two months to pick Five up after various verbal and physical altercations. After the fifth time he picks Five up, he’s told that Five just isn’t suited for the ‘culture’ of the school and that he should perhaps look for another school in the district that is better suited for him.

Given the limited alternatives, Diego does that. He also tries to find any activity for Five to do that will tire him out, challenge him, or just try to help him make friends. He signs Five up for gymnastics, but all that does is make it easy for him to climb shit to hide when he gets in trouble or wants to get things that Diego has hidden from him. He signs him up for dance lessons, but he refuses to go after the first one. He signs him up for after-school education since Five seems to be desperate for harder school work, but he practically hisses at the teaching assistants and is almost insulted when they ask him if he knows how to multiply. He signs him up for kickboxing and karate, which wasn’t the smartest plan, because once Five’s in his new school, still in grade three, he’s just more capable to punch other students who tease him.

Diego wisely decides not to sign Five up for archery. Diego’s bank account suffers as he tries to get Five involved in something that he’ll enjoy, and his coworkers think it’s odd that he doesn’t have a regular schedule as a beat cop, since he has to keep picking Five up from lessons and from schools when he gets into fights, but none of them question him outright. He thinks it’s because of his scars, because within his first week of being a police officer, he walked into the precinct with a bullet in his shoulder, escorting a drug dealer who a task force had been trying to catch for months. (Diego doesn’t tell anyone that he found the dealer because Klaus had another overdose, and told Diego who sold him his coke in a sleep-deprived haze.)

Eventually, Diego decides that Five needs to change schools again before they actually kick him out. Diego also decides to move apartments so that he can have an actual bedroom. It’s during a day in the middle of moving, when half their shit is in the new apartment and half of it is in the old one, when Diego has a night shift and can’t find a babysitter. Grace is visiting her mom in Staten Island, and there’s no way in hell that Diego is leaving Five with Reginald even for one night. Even if Diego was prepared to leave Five home alone, the house phones are at the new apartment and half of their kitchen is missing.

Eventually, Diego sucks it up and makes an awkward phone call to Vanya and asks her to look after Five for the night.

“Of course, Di,” She says softly, not mentioning the fact that this is the first time he’s called her for almost a year. “You would just need to drop him off. I don’t have a car.”

“Yeah, yeah, of course, I can feed him first if you like-”

“I can cook.” She laughs at Diego’s panicked voice. “I have to practice for my concert, though, so he might have a bit of a later night if he can’t handle noise.”

“I’m sure he’ll be fine.”

And so Diego throws whatever pyjamas are still in Five’s room into a backpack and drives Five to Vanya’s apartment. Diego can hear the inside of other apartments from the hallway and there’s stains on the ceiling. But Vanya welcomes them into her apartment with a pride that Diego recognizes instantly. Her house may suck, but it’s hers.

They talk for a few minutes and Five wanders into the living room and peers at a bunch of loose leaf papers on the coffee table. Diego gives Vanya a hug - something he hasn’t done in years - and ruffles Five’s hair, which earns his hand a weak slap and a pout. He decides not to lecture Five on not hitting in front of Vanya because if nothing else then he’ll be late to work.

When Diego picks Five up the next morning, Vanya tells him that Five was up all night reading her sheet music, and she spent the better part of the evening teaching him notes and how to hold a violin.

Diego signs Five up for music lessons and is shocked when he’s actually excited to attend. It doesn’t help with his mean streak at school, but Diego can’t bring himself to take it away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> finally we get the iconic name


	4. four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> seven through eight

Five is seven and has moved on from the violin to the piano to the guitar, having gotten bored with the previous instruments much too soon. Besides the various music lessons - some from Vanya, some from other teachers for however long they can stand Five - and multiple suspensions, meetings and school changes, this year is busy for another reason: Klaus.

Klaus, who knocked on Diego’s door at ten pm one night, nose bleeding, eyes red, shaking head to toe in a way that Diego couldn’t tell if it was the cold or because of drugs. He was dirty and too skinny, and Diego hadn’t seen or heard from him in months.

The last Diego heard from him, he got released from the hospital, went on a bender, got all the way to Baltimore, and promptly fell off the face of the earth. He stopped calling Diego, stopped sending him incoherent text messages at three am, and stopped occasionally seeing Diego when he got dragged into the station.

And now he was leaning against Diego’s door frame in a barely-there crop top, tattered jeans and no shoes.

Diego has half a mind to close the door in his brother’s face. No text, no calls, and now he shows up like this? When Diego has a kid around that he needs to take care of? Diego already has teachers nearly calling social services on him because he has yet to find a way to make Five act like a normal goddamn child, the last thing he needs is to add a junkie to the mix.

But then Klaus looks at him and smiles, and Diego can see blood in the cracks of his teeth. Klaus looks at Diego and chokes out, “Hey, big brother, haven’t seen you in a while.”

And Klaus looks so skinny and alone and scared, like he’s been so abandoned and abused by the world. Diego can’t bear to abandon him too.  

So despite the radio silence and the blood and the shaking, Diego lets Klaus into his apartment and makes him coffee and feeds him leftovers. He lets Klaus shower and gives him sweatpants to wear when he comes out. Klaus is still shivering, so Diego knows that it’s drug-related.

Diego sleeps on the couch and Klaus sleeps in Diego’s bed, curled up in a tight ball right in the centre. The next morning Diego wakes up to Five shaking him and asking, “Why is Klaus in the kitchen?”

Diego half expected Klaus to hightail it out of there after a good night's sleep, but between sips of coffee, and hushed whispers, and attempts to use more child-friendly language, Klaus tells Diego what led him to Diego’s doorstep. He tells Diego about sleeping on the streets, and his sex work, how his most recent boyfriend punched him in the face, and how he doesn’t know how to talk to his family anymore. Klaus tells Diego how being high makes him feel numb, which is the only way he can put up with being alive. He tells Diego how he saw a kid die of an overdose two nights ago. How the kid was barely fifteen when he started seizing up, vomiting, and twitching, before he passed out. How Klaus was also too fucked out of his mind to do anything except stare at the kid’s erratic breathing before it just stopped altogether.

“It made me think of all the times I overdosed, and what I looked like,” Klaus says, in a quiet voice.

Diego really doesn’t have enough money to support Klaus, considering he barely has enough money to support himself and Five. Still, he lets Klaus stay in his apartment, lets him sleep in Diego’s bed while Diego sleeps on the couch. Sometimes Diego will wake up - or Five will wake Diego up - to Klaus’s pained groans and sobs, or they will find him sitting under the frigid spray of the shower, or overhear the sounds of Klaus vomiting over the edge of the bed.

Eventually, Diego scrounges up enough money to send Klaus to rehab (again), and for a month Diego gets his bed back. Afterwards, Klaus returns, and Diego gives him the bed without a word. He doesn’t have enough money to move apartments again, certainly not enough to upsize, so he deals with the aches in his neck and back so that his brother and kid can have nice places to rest.

One night, after Klaus has had a particularly bad day of cravings and thus had argued and complained and fought with Diego for the entire time that he was in the same room as him, Diego is settling down for another cramped night on the couch. Just as he’s readjusting the pillows, Five walks into the room.

“What’s up, kid?” Diego asks, ignoring the glare he gets. “I thought you already said goodnight. Do you need something?”

Five looks down at the floor, and after a moment Diego realizes that he’s embarrassed.

Five mumbles something that Diego can’t decipher.

“Speak up, Five.”

“Do you want to sleep in my bed tonight?”

“What?” Diego asks, surprised. Five looks up and there’s red dusting his nose and cheeks.

“You took a lot of Advil and you’ve been rubbing your neck all day and you said that you have an early shift tomorrow so… do you want to sleep in my bed tonight? I can sleep on the couch.”

“Oh, Five. That’s sweet, but I can’t kick you out of your bed.” Diego smiles at him, “I’ll be fine out here.”

For a moment Five looks down, and then asks, “Do you want to share a bed? Just for tonight?”

“Would you be okay with that?” Diego fires back. Five tends to be protective of his space.

Five shrugs. “Just for tonight, yeah. And then we can look for a better couch tomorrow.”

“... Okay then.” Diego says, swinging his legs off the couch. He turns off the lamp in the living room. “Lead the way, Five.”

Diego is glad that he bought Five a full sized bed instead of a twin because even though Five is skinny for his age, it’s still a squeeze. Diego does his bed to make himself as small as possible, but Five still ends up slightly pressed against him. It kind of reminds him of when Five was a baby and would take naps leaning against Diego’s side when he would read in bed.

“Night, Diego.”

“Goodnight, Five.” Diego runs a hand through Five’s hair one last time before closing his eyes.

The next morning his neck doesn’t hurt. Three days later, Five helps him pick out a new couch.

\--

When Five turns eight, Klaus is still living with them. Despite everything, it’s easier for Diego to work more - especially since he passed his detective exam - now that Klaus can walk Five home from school, and bus with him to his music lessons, and at least Klaus can order take out over the phone. This works out well for Diego since his longer and more regular hours mean that he’s making more money, and starts developing more friendships with his co-workers. He’s been friends with Patch since the academy, but now he’s getting to know Beaman and some other cops better as well. He doesn’t tell them that he’s a dad, since he figures they already know, considering for years he got off of work with enough time to pick his kid up from school, and because Sharon from HR often makes eye contact with him when she talks about benefits for single parents during union meetings.

One long weekend Diego decides to take time off work and drive all three of them upstate to a cabin that Reginald owns. Reginald doesn’t know that Diego is going there, but Grace had passed him the keys the last time Diego and Five went over for lunch. He rarely sees Reginald, even when he does visit for his mother’s sake, and for that he’s grateful.

The car ride is long, and Diego isn’t sure who complains more: Five or Klaus. Eventually, they make it up to the cabin, and Five notes with thinly veiled excitement how close it is to a lake.

After unloading the car, Diego convinces Five to change into swimwear and come with him to the water. Five only complains a bit even though it’s clear he does want to go in. He’s been doing that more lately, acting more apathetic than he really is. Diego tries to encourage and support him, tries to listen to all his interests, but it seems like Five’s personality is just developing into one of general disinterest.

Klaus is already floating on his back by the time Diego drags Five out to the dock and wrestles him into a life jacket. Diego never signed Five up for swimming lessons, and never got around to teaching Five himself. Once, Diego went on to the local rec centre website to sign Five up, but when he that his old swim team vice-captain would be the one teaching Five, he selfishly chickened out.

Diego tries to convince Five to climb down the ladder into the lake, but once Five feels how cold the water is he refuses. After a few minutes of failed negotiation with Five, Diego picks Five up by the waist and flings him into the water. When he emerges, hair sticking to his forehead, he lets out a brief scream, before he laughs.

Diego spends the better part of the afternoon showing Five how to kick his legs and move his arms, eventually working up to taking Five’s lifejacket off and helping him float on his back.

“Hey, Diego?” Five asks, flailing a bit when a small wave laps his face. Diego’s hands are only about an inch below him, so he doesn’t move that much.

“Yeah?”

“What’s with those scars on your chest?” Five can only move his hand a little bit in the water before his form crumbles and Diego straightens his back out for him. For a second, Diego wonders how much he should tell him, before deciding he might as well get it all out in the open.

“There’s a long answer and a short answer. I’m going to tell you the long answer first.” Five nods then coughs when water gets into his mouth. “I wasn’t born the way I wanted to be born, and when I started to grow I didn’t grow the way I wanted either. Basically, I was born and raised as a girl until I was thirteen, when I realized that someone made a mistake and that I was a boy. I had to go to the doctor a lot to try and fix that mistake, to give me the body and the voice and the life I wanted. But some parts of my body couldn’t be changed with just one doctor visit.”

Diego looks at Five, who is staring at him as intently as he can, without getting water in his eyes. “That’s why you don’t have a mom. I got pregnant with you when I was really young. But I’m still your dad, even if you don’t call me that. So, that’s the really long answer.”

“And the short answer?”

“I got surgery on my chest.” For a second, Five just looks at him and then laughs before sputtering when water gets into his mouth.

The rest of the weekend goes well. Klaus almost sets himself on fire trying to roast marshmallows, Five tries to make a flower crown out of poison ivy, and Diego gets stung by a wasp. Diego takes more photos that weekend then his past self would ever admit to. On the drive back, both Klaus and Five are fast asleep the entire time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> five been drinking his good boy juice


	5. five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> nine through twelve

Diego is twenty-five when he gets his bed back because Klaus moves out. Five tries to pretend that he doesn’t care to maintain his new aloof, nine-year-old nature, but Diego can tell that he misses Klaus in his own way. Sometimes Five bursts into Diego’s bedroom and for a second is surprised to see Diego and not Klaus.

Diego misses his brother’s presence too, but he’s also proud of him. The only reason he moved out was that he got a boyfriend named Dave, who he met at some weird noise band concert. They had only been dating for six months when Dave asked Klaus to move in with him, but then again, Dave proclaimed his love for Klaus after their fourth date when Klaus told him that he thought that lava should be considered a smoothie.

Other than that, the year is uneventful. Five only gets three in school suspensions that year, switches from the piano to clarinet, and for a brief period, refuses to eat anything that isn’t some shade of green. Diego shrugs and shoves spinach into everything they eat for two months, deciding to let Five have his few child-like quirks.

\--

Five is ten when Diego lets him have a sip of his coffee one morning. It all goes downhill from there.

\--

Diego is twenty-seven when Roland - from sex crimes, of all departments - asks him out. For a moment he’s taken aback before he stutters out an ‘okay’.

His first thought after he gets Roland’s number is how did he know that Diego liked men. His second thought is about how Five would react.

Diego would be lying if he said that he’s remained abstinent since Five was born, but he never really dated after he became a parent. Every part of Diego’s life was just a means to get to a different goal for so long; first he had to finish high school to get to college to get into the police academy to become a beat cop to become a detective, all while trying to get Five into better schools, different programs, and in general trying to keep Five from killing himself or anyone else.

Now that Five is getting older and more independent, Diego realizes that for the first time since he was sixteen, maybe he can relax a little bit.

So he makes dinner for Five and leaves it in the fridge before going out to dinner with Roland. It’s boring and very quickly Diego knows that he doesn’t want to date him, but he’s still nervous. Most of the time they talk about work, Roland’s hobbies and Diego’s boxing.

He arrives home around eleven and finds Five asleep in front of the television. Diego rolls his eyes and decides to be nice, and instead of waking Five up, he just carries him to bed.

The next morning when Diego places Five’s breakfast in front of him, he says, “So, I went on a date last night.”

“I know.” Five says, trying to sneakily reach towards the coffee pot. Diego moves it without looking.

“I was just wondering how you felt about it.”

“What do you mean?”

“Are you okay with me dating people?” Diego clarifies, eyes on Five.

Five shrugs. “I mean, I don’t care…”

Diego can tell that there’s a pause, so he waits. His patience is rewarded, when Five continues after a few seconds. “But… I like just having you around. Because Klaus was here for so long, so only two people being here is nice.”

“Okay,” Diego says, reading between the lines.

He tells Roland that while he appreciated the date, he didn’t think things would work out between them. He also turns down the next three people that ask him out that year.

\--

Twenty-eight hits Diego like a freight train but that’s mostly because Five decides that, since he’s twelve now, he’s officially old enough to totally ignore Diego in every aspect of life. Granted, over the years he’s slowly listened to Diego less anyway, and it’s not like Diego ever parented a whole lot, but still, even the most basic discussions started to turn into arguments.

Sometimes it’s funny, watching Five trying to disobey him just on principle, like when Diego tells him not to eat something yet because it’s too hot and Five responses by shovelling steaming food into his mouth, only to promptly guzzle down a glass of ice water, effectively choking himself. But most of the time it isn’t. Like when Five refuses to wear his uniform properly at his new school, or when he refuses to go to bed on time, or when Diego comes home one day and finds a turned over beer can on the kitchen counter.

“You’re too young to drink,” Diego tells him sternly.

“I distinctly remember you coming home drunk when you were twenty.”

“Yeah, twenty! You’re twelve, Five! If you wanted to try alcohol you should have just asked. It’s dangerous to drink alone at your age.” And Five just grumbles when Diego takes his phone away for three days as punishment. But the next time that Diego decides to drink wine at dinner, Five tentatively asks if he can have a sip.

Five’s rebellious attitude doesn’t let up regardless of what methods of punishment Diego uses. Sometimes when he gets frustrated, Diego thinks of Reginald - the old bastard finally on death’s doorstep - and what he would have done in Diego’s situation. Or better yet, what he did do to Diego. He thinks of being locked in linen closets for hours on end, of having to clean floorboards with toothbrushes, of holding books with outstretched arms until Reginald decided that he was done watching. Diego thinks of old, frail-looking hands hitting his head with a shocking amount of force and of spit hitting his face as Reginald yelled at him.

Diego knows that despite all of Five’s flaws - most of which, he can admit to himself, are probably a result of his parenting and the house that he grew up in - that Five’s a good kid inside. Even if he wasn't, he wouldn’t deserve the treatment that Diego received as a child.

So, Diego restricts television privileges, takes away phones, hides the weird art house and vintage black and white films that Five likes to watch, tells him he can’t go to his art lessons or astronomy clubs, and that he’ll have to eat spinach for a month as punishment. They never work. Five always finds a way to worm out of his punishment, or he just sucks it up and does the same action again, but Diego would rather issue ineffective punishments than hurt - truly hurt - his son.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 12 year old are all demons


	6. six

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> thirteen through fourteen

Reginald dies when Five is thirteen. Grace calls Diego, and from his bedroom, Five can hear Diego saying, “Oh. I’m so sorry, mom. Are you okay? Okay, we’ll be there.”

He hears the beep of the phone being hung up, and for a moment there’s silence, before Diego’s laughter fills the apartment along with the words, “ _Fucking finally!_ ”

“What is it?” Five calls out from his room, pausing Koyaanisqatsi on his laptop.

“The old man is finally dead!” Diego yells back.

“Reginald died?” Five calls back. He never spent a lot of time with his grandfather, when he was younger he remembers Diego snatching him away from Reginald any time they were in the same room together, and once they moved out Diego never let him go to the mansion unless Grace was there to look after him. As such, he never really got to know him, but from what he’s heard from Diego and all of his siblings, Reginald treated them badly.

“Fuck yeah, kiddo!”

“Don’t call me that!” Five yells, then a moment later, “Does this mean I have a margarita tonight to celebrate?”

“Oh, Five, we are drinking champagne tonight!” Five doesn’t really understand why Diego is so excited, but he’s not going to miss the chance to drink champagne.

The next day they show up at the mansion wearing all black. Five brings white flowers. Diego has to wear sunglasses because of his hangover.

\--

Five is fourteen when, entirely by accident, he meets the man that he’s been calling his Biological Donor.

He’s shopping with Diego, trying to convince him to buy him another telescope from the hobby shop, when Diego looks up and stops dead in his tracks. Five frowns at him, and is about to ask what’s wrong, when an unfamiliar voice calls out, “Diego?”

Diego’s face is blank, when he replies, “Hey, Victor.”

Five looks over and sees a man approaching them. He looks about the same age as Diego and has pale skin and blond hair and bright green eyes. Five can see tattoos on his arms, at least from where the rolled up sleeves of his button up allow him to see.

Five doesn’t recognize him at all.

“Wow, Diego, I haven’t seen you in a while.” He smiles at Diego, then his eyes flicker to Five and his face seems to falter for a moment. “Is this…”

“My son,” Diego says, voice coming out jerky and uneven. “This is my son.”

“I’m Five.” Five says, always hating when people don’t let him introduce himself.

Victor’s eyebrows furrow. “Five?”

“I didn’t name him that!” Diego rushes out, making Five look at him strangely. “I gave him a different name! He picked Five himself.”

Victor laughs. “Well, then, it’s nice to meet you, Five.”

“I’m sure it is.” Five replies, before looking up at Diego. “If you’re going to stand here and talk, I’m going to keep walking. Text me when you’re finished.”

He walks off without saying goodbye - something Diego will probably scold him for later, even though he isn’t the king of making polite exits either - and starts walking to the hobby store. It takes Diego longer than usual to text him, almost twenty minutes, and then they meet back up. Diego doesn’t look upset exactly, but almost shaken a bit. Unsteady and emotional.

It’s not until Diego is driving them home that Five thinks about Victor’s green eyes and pale skin, and their matching names. He thinks about how Diego froze at the sight of him, and how Victor seemed to freeze at the sight of Five.

He thinks about how he’s never seen the man in his life.

He doesn’t ask any questions right away. Mostly because he can tell that it’ll upset Diego, and regardless of what others think, he doesn’t like making his dad cry.

Five waits a few days until he’s standing in the kitchen as Diego is making chili for dinner, when he asks, “Did you want to be a dad?”

“No,” Diego says automatically, not even looking up from the stove top.

Five frowns for a moment, then schools his expression back into one of neutrality. “Then why did you have me?”

Diego sighs and looks up from the pot of chili he’s stirring. “Five, you have to understand: Reginald was a dick and wanted to make my life hell.”

“So you got stuck with me, basically?”

“At first, yeah.” Diego shrugs. “But I was sixteen. No one wants to be a dad at sixteen and I didn’t know how to be a dad at sixteen-”

“You barely know how to be a dad now.” Five snarks back. Diego throws a piece of a bell pepper at him, making him dodge and laugh.

“Oh, screw you. Anyway, yes, at sixteen, I did get stuck with you, but very quickly I started spending time with you. Not because I had to but because I wanted to. You know when I got into the academy, my mom offered to keep you and raise you so that I could move out earlier?”

“Really?”

“Yeah. I told her no.” He looks up to see Five’s incredulous expression. “I know, kid, surprisingly, I do love you.”

“Don’t call me that.” Five glares for a moment before his face softens. “I love you too, Diego.”

For a moment an awkward, overly emotional silence fills the kitchen, making both of them fidget.

“Besides,” Diego says loudly, starling Five, “I need to keep you around.”

“Why’s that?”

“I still need help with my injections, and you are scarily good with needles.”

“I need the practice for when I kill you in your sleep.”

Diego rolls his eyes and laughs, before telling Five he needs to clear the table so that they can eat. For once, Five doesn’t complain when Diego ruffles his hair before he goes to bed.

Still, the next day Diego still gets a call from Five’s school to tell him that Five called a teacher a ‘name, which they did not feel comfortable disclosing over the phone’. And yeah, when he was sixteen Diego certainly didn’t think that this is how his life would be at thirty, but he can’t think of one that he would rather have.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is a bit short but whatever  
> big thanks 2 jordo for proofreading again and for helping me split this up into chapters. i actually hate chaptered fics (or at least... writing them) so this was just going to be a MASSIVE one shot but jordo is the one w/ the brain cell today so i listened 2 him
> 
> also five is 100% the type to watch like OLD ASS movies and art haus films not because he's pretentious (ok a lil bit because he is) but literally just because HE'S WEIRD AND HE'S LIKE "i like how metropolis tells the story of class struggles but then shows the solution through a fascist lens" and diego is like ".... why cant u just watch mtv like other kids"


End file.
